“Dominic.”
The storm beat at the windows. The fire whispered. Thomas slept on, oblivious, while they stood suspended in a moment that felt perilously close to something irrevocable.
He withdrew first.
“I should—” His voice was rough. “I should take him to bed.”
“Yes.” She stepped back, steadying herself. “Yes, of course.”
She watched as he lifted Thomas with careful ease, holding him as though he were something fragile. The boy stirred but did not wake, his hand curling instinctively into the fabric of Dominic’s coat.
At the door, Dominic paused.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. “For tonight. For… all of it.”
Then he was gone.
Lorraine remained where she stood, the fire sinking to embers, her heart unsteady in her chest.
***
Later—much later—Lorraine lay in her narrow bed, staring up at the ceiling.
The storm had begun to ease. The wind still moved restlessly about the house, but the thunder had rolled on across the moors. She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling the quick, unsteady beat beneath her palm.
This is dangerous, she thought.This is foolish. This is precisely the sort of situation that ruins women like me.
She knew the risks well enough. A governess who formed an attachment to her employer was a commonplace warning, the subject of quiet scandal and social ruin. She had forfeited her good name once already—given it up so her sister might keep hers. She could not afford such a loss again. Could not risk the position, the income, the fragile stability she had built from what remained of her former life.
And yet—
His hand against hers. His voice speaking her name. The way he had looked at Thomas, as though he had witnessed something rare and astonishing. The way he had looked at her—
She turned onto her side, drawing the blanket close, as though it might contain the restless churn of her thoughts. Three weeks. Only three weeks, andalready she was too deeply involved. With the boy. With the house. With the man who haunted it—restless, guarded, and, despite everything, capable of a gentleness that undid her.
This is dangerous, she thought again.
But the warmth of the fire still lingered in her memory. Thomas’s laughter echoed faintly in her mind. And the memory of Dominic’s touch—the light brush of his fingers, the quiet heat of it—seemed to remain against her skin.
I do not care,she realised at last, the thought both terrifying and strangely steadying.I simply do not care.
She closed her eyes, and at last sleep came, carrying her into dreams.
Chapter Eight
“His Grace took breakfast in the morning room again, miss. That’s three days running now.”
Jenny’s voice carried the breathless importance of momentous news—which, in the quiet world of Rovewood Hall, it very nearly was. Lorraine looked up from the slate where she had been setting sums for Thomas and found the nursery maid hovering in the doorway, barely containing herself.
“Did he?” she said, keeping her tone neutral, though her pulse had quickened at once. “How very… encouraging.”
“Encouraging!” Jenny clasped her hands. “Miss, you don’t understand. His Grace hasn’t taken to such ways in years. Mrs Potter nearly dropped the teapot the first morning. And now he’s doing it regular-like, and asking after Master Thomas, and—” She broke off, eyes widening. “Oh! Do you think something’s changed?”
Everything has changed, Lorraine thought.And nothing. And I do not know which is more terrifying.
“I think His Grace is taking a proper interest in his ward,” she said aloud, turning back to the slate. “As he ought. Now, if your mending is finished, perhaps you might take Thomas into the garden? The weather has cleared.”
Jenny curtsied and withdrew, though not before casting Lorraine a knowing look that suggested the servants’ hall was already alive with speculation.
